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First-Year Writing and Rhetoric
WRTG 1150, Section 103
Spring 2013
Instructor: Christopher David Rosales
E-mail:
Office: STAD266D (Easiest to enter through Gate 11)
Office Hours: Wednesdays/ 4:30 – 5:30 & Tuesdays/ 2:15 – 3:15, or by appointment.
Class Meeting Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 3:30pm
Room: HLMS 104
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Required Texts:
Knowing Words: A Guide to First-Year Writing and Rhetoric (Fall/Spring 2012-2013)
In addition to the text, you are expected to print out a considerable number of handouts, in addition to your own essays, over the course of the semester. Please be prepared to absorb the printing costs as you would the cost of additional text books.
Course Description: Welcome to First-Year Writing and Rhetoric, a course designed to introduce you to college-level academic writing. This course emphasizes thinking, reading and writing critically—that is, thinking, reading and writing that does not merely understand what a text says, but understands how it says it. We will study how we can use reading and writing to explore ideas and to inform readers, with special analytical attention to basic rhetorical concerns such as audience, purpose, structure, and argument. Class work will include reading the work of established writers, studying the craft and process of writing, group discussion, and considerable writing. These activities are used to emphasize the power of language to inform readers and explore ideas. We will also steadily ask what the writer’s responsibilities are. It is important to note that any themes that develop in, or form the shape of, this course, are avenues for discussion of writing, rather than the other way around. Expect to write a lot. Please understand that your role in the class is both as student and peer – you will be asked to read and comment on your classmates’ writing frequently. This required workshopping is designed to help you be aware of your audience, to help you articulate your ideas about writing, and to gain self-awareness of yourself as a writer.
Course delivery: The teaching and learning will take place through workshop, peer review,
Conferences. In addition, the Writing Center is available should you find you need further assistance. Most of your progress will be assessed based on a comparison of your final drafts and your initial drafts, as well as your incorporation of the techniques learned from the readings into the revisions of those drafts. The best writers are also voracious and critically astute readers. On the most basic level, reading literature helps us to recognize what good literature is as well as how good writing works. Furthermore, reading also inspires writing in that it continually keeps language moving through the brain. We will spend time closely reading texts, discussing the techniques these writers use (and how we can use them in our own writing), and how reading and writing inform each other. All reading is required. Because this course hinges upon participation, assigned readings must be completed before the class they are to be discussed. Arriving to class prepared for discussion will result in a higher grade for the course. Please bring the texts for the day to class. (You may do this using an electronic device I have approved ahead of time.)
Technology: In this course, you will be called upon to check D2L and your CU email regularly. I cannot emphasize enough how often these resources need to be used to stay up to date with the materials needed for the classroom activities. Again, there is not text, so interaction with these resources is paramount.
Information Literacy: You will be expected to complete the RIOT modules as wells as attend a Library Research Seminar during a regular class session. The RIOT tutorial’s main objective is to enhance your information literacy. In addition RIOT aims to:
1. Present research as an intellectual process connected to learning and inquiry
2. Anchor Information Literacy concepts in the first-year writing curriculum and student assignments
3. Provide a conceptual overview of the research process (Modules 1-4) as well as CU tool-based instruction (Module 5)
Course Objectives
There are six main learning objectives for WRTG 1150 (See Knowing Words Chapter 1 for more information about the course description and goals.). The aim of the course is to help you:
1. To develop rhetorical knowledge, analyzing and making informed choices about purposes, audiences, and context as you read and compose texts.
Whether it’s an academic article, a blog, or newspaper editorial, all writing is responsive to a particular situation written from a particular perspective (the author’s), for a particular purpose (or purposes), and using particular composing strategies. As a reader and a writer, you’ll use rhetorical knowledge for interpreting other people’s writing as well as for composing your own work.
2. To analyze texts in a variety of genres, understanding how content, style, structure, and format vary across a range of reading and writing situations.
You’ll study the strategies through which writers explore their subjects and express meaning by responding to a variety of texts, thus interacting with the text as a reader who shares responsibility with the author for a text’s meanings and implications.
3. To refine and reflect on your writing process, using multiple strategies to generate ideas, drafts, revise, and edit your writing across a variety of genres.
You’ll write frequently, generating writing on the variety of subjects for different purposes and from different perspectives. You’ll also have frequent opportunities to workshop writing in progress with your peers and to confirm with your instructor on individual conferences. You may also be asked to write short reflective pieces about your writing and about your process and progress, breakthroughs and setbacks. The reflective pieces will help make your learning more visible to you.
4. To develop information literacy, making critical choices as you identify a specific research need, locate and evaluate information sources, and draw connections among your own and others’ ideas and your writing.
You’ll learn how to formulate and pose a question, problem, or issue for research; how to explore what is already known about your subject; how to choose an appropriate method or strategy for your own research; how to analyze data and determine the credibility and validity of your sources; and how best to convey both the information and your own discoveries through writing intended to inform and persuade other readers.
5. To construct effective and ethical arguments, using appropriate reasons and evidence to support your positions while responding to multiple points of view.
An argument involves joining the conversation. As part of your writing class, you’ll both analyze others’ arguments and construct an argument about a topic of interest to you. You will join the conversation about your topic by gathering research to help you develop an informed opinion you can support with clear reasons and credible evidence. As part of your argument, you’ll also consider and respectfully respond to counterarguments.
6. To understand and apply language conventions rhetorically, including grammar, spelling, punctuation, and format.
Yes grammar counts… but what counts as “good” grammar changes in different rhetorical situations. Because this is an academic course, and most of your major assignments you’ll be expected to use a writing style and tone that is considered appropriate for a general academic audience. However, as part of the course you’ll also write in other genres and for other audiences, so you’ll need to think carefully about how to adapt your writing for the rhetorical situation at hand.
These six course goals express the PWR’s commitment to preparing you for the other kinds of reading and writing you will perform in your other classes. They also fulfill the course criteria given to all state institutions by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the governmental body that contributes to the policies for college education in Colorado. In other words, this writing class is not just about what your writing teacher here at CU thinks is important. It’s about deepening your skills in rhetorical knowledge, writing processes, and language conventions so that you can write effectively for a variety of audiences in a variety of situations—both inside and outside the classroom.
Paper format
Learning how to format your papers and assignments and to pay attention to how they appear is an important component of improving your academic writing. Every assignment will be word processed, in Times New Roman font, 12 pt., and will follow these rules:
· Put the following information in the upper left-hand corner: your name, the date, the assignment name, my name, and the title of your paper (if there is one).
· Double-space, unless you’re specifically instructed not to.
· Make sure there is a page number on every page in the top right corner (except the 1st page)
· You may print double-sided.
· Staple all multiple-paged assignments.
You will lose points if you do not follow this format.
Policies
Quizzes: Quizzes may be given at any time, usually unannounced. Quizzes may cover the day’s assigned reading (including any vocabulary found therein) and anything covered in previous class discussions.
Attendance and Class Participation: This class will depend on your voice; attendance at each class meeting is required. This follows from a desire to make this class a cooperative learning experience, and a true creative community. You will be called upon to enter discussion, contribute your ideas, share your writing, and otherwise join in class activities. Furthermore, participation includes full attention and courtesy to whomever is speaking. Learning results from being present (and actively engaging when you are present). Finally, in order to reinforce this participatory community, you may not use cellphones in class.
After three unexcused absences, each additional one will lower your final grade by a half letter-grade (five percent). The only excused absences are those due to sudden illnesses, observed religious holidays, and family emergencies, in which cases I will need written documentation. The written documentation will allow you to turn in the homework for the day(s) that you missed. Three tardies will result in an unexcused absence. If you sleep in class, text message in class, or are found using facebook or chatting on your laptop in class, you will be counted as absent.
Students and faculty each have an obligation to help maintain an appropriate learning environment. Students who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Faculty have the professional responsibility to treat all students with understanding, dignity, and respect, to guide classroom discussion, and to set reasonable limits on the manner in which they and their students express opinions. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. See policies at
http://www.colorado.edu/policies/classbehavior.html and at
http://www.colorado.edu/studentaffairs/judicialaffairs/code.html#student_code
Grading Scale for Participation:
A always prepared for class; participates without being called on; response to other students’ thinking and writing reveals insight and close reading; comments are clear, succinct, and helpful.
B generally prepared for class; occasionally participates without being called on; response to other students’ thinking and writing demonstrates mastery of the course goals; comments are generally clear and helpful.
C sometimes prepared for class; only participates when called on; mastery of the course goals generally evident, but responses to other students’ thinking and writing, although somewhat helpful, demonstrate a less than thorough rhetorical awareness or reading of the paper.
D inadequately prepared or never participates unless called on; response to other students’ thinking and writing demonstrates a superficial or inaccurate reading, at best; comments demonstrate a failure to master the course goals.
F disruptive to class (talking inappropriately, continual tardiness, etc.); unprepared when called on; unable or unwilling to participate in class discussions.
Office hours: I have scheduled regular office hours when you may visit me, and am also available by appointment. This is the most effective way for me to give you individual attention and get to know you better. You are required to meet with me at least once during the semester.
Discussion Questions: For every major reading assignment you will be expected to bring to class two questions, printed, about the reading for the day These should be of the levels two and three variety (using Costa’s levels).
Other Homework: Occasionally, I may give the class additional assignments that will count toward your participation grade. They will usually require only a short amount of time to complete.
Writing: This course will cover three types of writing: personal/reflective, analytical, and researched argument. You will submit three complete essays, and several smaller assignments that will total no less than 25-30 revised pages for the semester. Submissions should be accompanied by a one-page writer’s letter discussing the creation and development of the piece. In this letter, you can analyze your own work, discuss the effects you intended to create, how you approached it, difficulties you encountered, strategies you used, etc. You might think of it as a cross between a self-critique and a journal written on your own work. On the due date of a submission, you must arrive at the beginning of class with the appropriate number of copies of your work ready to be distributed to your workshop group. E-mailed work is not acceptable.
Written critiques: For each essay that the students in your group submit, you are required to write an assessment. Give your general impressions of the work: What was it like to read? How does the author apply the techniques we have studied in class to his or her work? You may also make suggestions for revision. For each round of critiques, I’ll give you specific things I’m looking for you to comment on as well. Please also make some comments directly on the manuscript and return this to the author. Your critique of each essay must be at least a half page. You must bring two copies of your evaluation to class—one for your peer and one for me.
Revisions: For each essay, there will be a unique revision assignment due a week after the original version. These are different from what we normally think of as revision. Rather than making the essay as good as it can be, each of these revision assignments will focus on one particular aspect of writing. In fact, these revisions may end up being worse essays, overall, than the originals—but they should ingrain core writing concepts in the process that will make future writing and revision more effective. These revisions will count for twenty-five percent of each essay’s grade.